How to read a book - a practical guide

how-to-read--practical.md

Combined guide from reading https://pne.people.si.umich.edu/PDF/howtoread.pdf and How To Read a Book by Mortimer Adler.

1. Decide how much time you'll spend

2. Have a purpose and a strategy

why you're gonna read it and how you're gonna do it

• Who is the author?

• What are the book’s arguments?

• What is the evidence that supports these?

• What are the book’s conclusions?

  Once you understand this look into:

  • What are the weaknesses of these arguments, evidence, and conclusions?
  • What do you think about them?
  • How does (or how could) the author respond to these weaknesses, and to your own criticisms?

^ keep coming back to these as you read

3. Read-though 1: Skim

should I even read this? (few mins- 1hour)

1. read title and preface
2. study table of contents - get a general sense of book's structure
3. check the index - make a quick estimate of the range of topics covered via the authors and books that are being referred to. when some term listed seems crucial, look up at least some of the passages cited.
4. read the publisher's blurb

^ At this point you might realize you don't even wanna go further. thats ok.

1. look at the chapters that seem pivotal to its argument
   1. if these chapters have summary statements in opening/closing pages, read these statements carefully
2. browse
   1. thumb through the book, always looking for signs of the main contention, listening for the basic pulse of the matter.
   2. above all, read the last 2-3 pages of the book. Summaries lie here.

4. Read-though 2: Overview

• get a quick-and-dirty, unsophisticated, general picture of the writer’s purpose, methods, and conclusions.
• mark stuff that seems important (you'll want this stuff in the 2nd read)
• ask Q's to answer on your 2nd read

5. Read-though 3: Detail/Analytical

• within time constraints, read again. GOAL = understanding
• careful, critical grasp of the key points, evaluate author’s evidence for points
• focus on: beginnings/ends/major sections
• from 1st read: pay attention to markings, answer prev. Q's

Find what the book is about

1. State what the whole book is about with the utmost brevity
2. Enumerate the major parts in their order and relation, and outline these parts are you've outlined the whole
3. Define the problem(s) the author is trying to solve.

come to terms

4. come to terms with the author by interpreting his key words
5. grasp the author's leading propositions by dealing with his most important sentences
6. know the author's arguments (by finding them or constructing them from sequences of sentences)
7. Determine which of his problems the author has/has not solved

6. Read-though 4: Notes

• make brief notes about arguments, evidence, and conclusions
• use your own words ONLY

7. Practice what you've learned

write/draw about it

Misc

Read in 1-2hr blocks

• Marking up a book keeps you wide awake
• writing your reactions down helps you to remember the thoughts of the author

Read actively

ask questions throughout the book, Never rely on the author's structures alone. Move around in the text, following your own goals.

The essence of active reading

1. "what is the book about as a whole?" - whats the theme and how does the author develop it
2. "what's being said in detail, and how?" - try to discover the main ideas, assertions, and arguments that constitute the author's particular message
3. "Is the book true, in whole or part?" - you cant answer this until you've understood the 1st two questions. Once you understand a book, if you're serious about reading, you are obligated to make up your own mind...knowing the author's mind is not enough.
4. "What of it?" - why is any of this significant?

Focus on parts w high information

• Front and back covers, inner jacket flaps
• Table of contents
• Index: scan this to see which are the most important terms
• Bibliography: tells you about the book’s sources and intellectual context
• Preface and/or Introduction and/or Abstract
• Conclusion
• Pictures, graphs, tables, figures: images contain more information than text
• Chapter introductions and conclusions
• Section headings
• Special type or formatting: boldface, italics, numbered items, lists